Carissa Rodriguez. Artist. New York. August 7, 2013.

We loved her the minute we met her. She had been recommended to us by a friend after a model left us in the lurch; Carissa walked on the set, a star. There was nothing we had to do but hand her a few props; she worked the camera for the rest. Her interest in the “happening,” of fashion, of photography, was just that–an interest in the happening-ness of it. She was nineteen or so, then, and you could not look away, because if you did you’d feel the sweet heartbreak of watching a beautiful young girl with an open heart and eyes walking away; Carissa was always on to the next thing not as a repudiation of the past, just an adding on to the present. That was a long time ago, but not for us; we love her now as we loved her that first afternoon when she showed up, game for anything. Over drinks just recently she talked about how, when she was a younger girl, she loved going to rock concerts during the day, and how those musicians are now proud to be “Dads in Crocs. Which is NOT my scene.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Carissa in a pair of blue jeans, or not looking like an extension of her beautiful art: self-contained, inexplicable, a complete imagining of something you couldn’t imagine seeing an hour or a day before. Sometimes, after I see Carissa, I feel a sweet sadness as I watch her walk away, a skinny pretty smart girl in the city, that’s all, which is everything.